


Daylight

by lightningwaltz



Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And it looks like they’re bonded for life after all</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the HBO War Ficathon. Prompt was "I never knew daylight could be so violent."

This new guy, Sledge, seems comprised of all the colors you only see at dawn. Scrub off the grime, and he’s all red and pale pink, and Snafu looks and thinks _yeah, that shit isn’t going to last long._

*****

After all, you don’t become properly acquainted with replacements until your ass is on a transport, headed to god-knows-where. The metallic walls clattering and humming, and everyone aware that some luckless bastard is going to be dead within minutes. It’s not some jumped up hyperbole. Someone here is getting carted away as a corpse.

The knowledge drifts like gun smoke, and people are either gagging at the thought or they aren’t. Yes, this is when things begin to take the shape of what’s to come. Snafu’s packed in next to Sledge, and there’s a woozy sheen to his eyes. He’s pretty sure the guy’s heart is hammering like rapid fire, too, because you’d be a fucking idiot to not be scared. The way these things go, it’s possible that that same heart is going to be oozing out the dirt of Peleliu- along with everything else contained in his ribcage- so it only seems fair to offer Sledge a cigarette. _Hello replacement, goodbye replacement. If you get shot I’m running on ahead._

However Snafu’s rejected- politely, meticulously- and the only proper response seems to be a shit-eating grin. There’s part of Snafu that flat out loves that there are still soldiers who can say _no thank you, I don’t smoke_ and apparently believe that they may live long enough to continue denying these small pleasures. 

Snafu can’t picture a future. When he tries, he only sees bright sand and sky so white that he feels like his eyes are going to fall out. There’s no future and probably no past either. Maybe he just sprung up out of the rocks on one of these islands, and his entire world is made up of now, now, now. 

Alright, not every man is going to accept your cigarette. All the same, Snafu accidentally pukes on Sledge’s shoes and it looks like they’re bonded for life after all.

 

 *****

There’s something compelling about a replacement’s face after his first day of battle. No amount of training prepares a soldier for the sight of corpses packed together near the waves like a bunch of sardines. Shrapnel zipping past your ear even though nothing should be able to move in this humidity. Men you were laughing with yesterday exploding into a red confetti-like mess. 

The implacable sun bearing witness to it all. 

No two replacements have the same reaction, no more than any battle is exactly the same. Sledge keeps things interesting by darting around, looking enormously _pissed off_ , more than anything else. Sure, the man is terrified, but he’s also carting around some thinly veiled fury and that’s more worthy of note than any old lamb to the slaughter act.

Snafu wants to ask him why; are you mad about the horrors you’ve seen? Do you think you could have stopped them? Do you feel conned? Do you know, already, that you will have nightmares about this day?

But he keeps those questions at bay, because it just so happens that a bomb eventually knocks him down. He’s like one of those fucking crabs if you turn it on its back, and he thinks he’s going to die here, staring up at the vivid afternoon sky. But then there’s Sledge pulling him up, and making him run again. 

Later he offers Sledge two things (escaping death makes you a generous man); a cigarette _and_ a nickname. This time Sledge accepts them both.


End file.
